As I was shopping in Tesco last night, it occurred to me that I quite like the multi cultural element of our society. There were all sorts of nationalities in there, rubbing shoulders, doing their thing and basically getting on fine. I spotted, Portugese, Russian, Lithuanian, Polish, Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese, to name but a few. It got me to thinking about all the strife in the world. Seems to me that the best thing we can do about that is to open our borders more, and be less insular.

Then today I saw this:-

Wheres the honour in this ?

Rose tinted glasses came off and piss boiled. However, is my original thought a better way forward, rather than getting angry and xenophobic??

Discuss

Soz, wrong forum not sure how I did that, but hey.

I’m not sure. But I’m glad of our multicultural society , yesterday was a fine example I went to my local Tesco in a bit of a rough predominately white area and no they had no cheap bulmers left after a few hours of it goin on sale 🙁 I then went to the next nearest one in a mainly non white area and it was full to the brim with cheap booze 😉 happy days

Its difficult, members of the Muslim community in the UK are far more likely to be racist, faithist and homophobic but the moment you point it out you feel like you have committed a faux paux because you have pointed out a fault of a group of people who are almost exclusivly not white and the stigma of racism is a bad one. Its amazing how badly black Muslims are treated by asian muslims for example.

All sorts of people put pressure on their children to have ‘appropriate’ relationships.

Sometimes it’s based on race, sometimes religion, sometimes just class – the media tends to report this sort of thing when it’s Muslims doing it but I know a lot of Christians are put under family pressure to only marry someone from ‘the Church’.

Yes it’s bad but I’m not sure it’s a result of ‘multi-cultural’ Britain – it would still happen if we had a mono-culture.

Sometimes it’s based on race, sometimes religion, sometimes just class – the media tends to report this sort of thing when it’s Muslims doing it

I ant recall the last time a miner assaulted his daughter for going out with a Viscountess, can you?

JonR – Member

Its difficult, members of the Muslim community in the UK are far more likely to be racist, faithist and homophobic

Really?

For sure there is an element like that but there is as well in white society.

Is it that you just hear of these instances more?

so what do you propose TJ – that if we DONT hear about something we should assume that its not because it doesnt happen and in fact invent that it must happen a lot? Your world must get very confusing what with all these synthetic constructs you have to keep building.

the last time a miner assaulted his daughter for going out with a Viscountess, can you?

well, no but that’s because the media don’t report that sort of thing – proves my point dunnit 😉

Seriously, I’d imagine a viscountess might get some familial grief for doing that (maybe not physically assaulted, but a lot of psychological stuff)?

well, no but that’s because the media don’t report that sort of thing – proves my point dunni

you’re TJ and I claim my £5 🙂

Really?

For sure there is an element like that but there is as well in white society.

Is it that you just hear of these instances more?

Yes, I really am sure. Islamaphobia in the media is easy to highlight with just a quick trip to the Daily Mail website but having some sort of blind faith that all communities have similar levels of bigotry just because that would be nice is idiocy.

I know a lot of Christians are put under family pressure to only marry someone from ‘the Church’.

My brother and his wife are under constant pressure from certain friends to get their kids christened.
It’s more of a social climbing thing to get them into the “right schools” rather than anything of any religious nature, though.
I dont know whats worse…

BTW my grandad was sent out for eloping with and marrying a C of E girl. No death threats, but social exclusion.

Nutters are nutters – nothing wrong with being angry about the story, but I hope you get just as angry about wife beaters, murderers, molesters of all colours and races…read some of the other stories on the BBC – plenty of white people causing trouble and harm in the Britain.

I’m incredibly proud of our multi cultural society – if only our politicians could champion this about Britain rather than hiding or suppressing it because they’re too scared of a noisy minority of racists and the Daily Mail.

Wheres the honour in this ?

Whilst the assualt in the link is done in the name of religion I firmly believe it’s actually just driven by the fact the assaulter is a large FLW (four letter word for future ref) and is using religion as an excuse to exercise his power/violence/ego stroking/moronism. Look at the tropubles in NI, in recent times it wasn’t sectarianism that drove the violence it was crime fuelled .. The sooner we recognise these people as criminal scumbags and ignore the religion aspect then I think it will go a long way to nullifying any moronic rasicm that might bubble up because of the behaviour of a few PSA (prolific self abusers, for future ref).

I spotted, Portugese, Russian, Lithuanian, Polish, Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese,

How do you tell the Portuguese apart from other Mediterranean nations, or Russians from Lithuanian s and other Baltic/northern European nations, or Sri Lankans from Indians and Pakistanis and Bangladeshi?

Seems an odd statement to make and clearly untrue.

Seems an odd statement to make and clearly untrue.

I have a smattering of the East European languages, plus Portugese, Chinese, and a tiny bit of Erdu mainly due to the fact that I work on a farm where all of these nationalities have been employed, That is why I only ID’ed the nationalities I recognised. That apart I was chatting to the Sri Lankan couple in the checkout queue. I’m sure if I tried hard I could have ID’ed more.

And your point is?

Nice to see that ‘man’s’ 2010 year old creative medium, designed purely to control and instil fear, just as effective now than it ever was.

And to think we can now detect other planets!

Classical conditioning, works every time – *T-ching*

……….now where did I put my bag of rocks?

Waiter, Ill have what ^ he is having!

I doubt that honour killings have their roots in a religion created by man in order to repress the masses, but by gum, it’s a great excuse!

Its difficult, members of the Muslim community in the UK are far more likely to be racist, faithist and homophobic

that is a rather broad brush you have wielded there and I do not agree. Look at the EDL and The NF/BNP for racism from white folk- what exactly are you accusing all Muslims of here rather than a few nutters “honour” acts are not very common despite there being over a million Muslims here – they are also committed by other faiths. We should just treat them as crimes – plenty of white folk used to and I assume still do beat /disown children for inter racial affairs it just gets less publicity and is termed violence rather than having a specific name
Faithist – WTF does that mean ?- the Koran specifically tells them to respect people of other Faiths – but you knew that didn’t you eh
Homophobic? – no worse/better than other religious groups who frown on it – yes we should challenge all groups re this but you don’t need to be religious to be homophobic nor does being religious necessarily mean you will be

having some sort of blind faith that all communities have similar levels of bigotry just because that would be nice is idiocy.

Bigotry is wrong whether it is someone showing it toward Islam or someone Islamic showing it.
I really am not sure they are more likely to be racist, faithist or homophobic – who are you comparing them to?? What is your empirical evidence base?
Is it muslims in the UK or all Muslims ?
Afro –caribeean men are not exactly tolerant of homosexuality nor are many working class white males etc. You see th epoint donet you
It seems odd to make such a sweeping statement about a diverse group of people.

Going back to my original point, I am coming to the conclusion that Xenophobia is a dish best taken without integration.

that is a rather broad brush you have wielded there and I do not agree. Look at the EDL and The NF/BNP for racism from white folk- what exactly are you accusing all Muslims of here rather than a few nutters “honour” acts are not very common despite there being over a million Muslims here – they are also committed by other faiths. We should just treat them as crimes – plenty of white folk used to and I assume still do beat /disown children for inter racial affairs it just gets less publicity and is termed violence rather than having a specific name
Faithist – WTF does that mean ?- the Koran specifically tells them to respect people of other Faiths – but you knew that didn’t you eh
Homophobic? – no worse/better than other religious groups who frown on it – yes we should challenge all groups re this but you don’t need to be religious to be homophobic nor does being religious necessarily mean you will be

Bigotry is wrong whether it is someone showing it toward Islam or someone Islamic showing it.
I really am not sure they are more likely to be racist, faithist or homophobic – who are you comparing them to?? What is your empirical evidence base?
Is it muslims in the UK or all Muslims ?
Afro –caribeean men are not exactly tolerant of homosexuality nor are many working class white males etc. You see th epoint donet you
It seems odd to make such a sweeping statement about a diverse group of people.

I’m not going to get in to a long and drawn out discussion because its a hiding to nothing. You’ve jumped on to my post because you feel it contains generalisations and for no other reason.

I tell you what you show me your empiracle evidence that am I wrong and don’t just lean on the politically correct yet erronous assumption that generalisations are the route of all evil and then we’ll talk but I suspect that wont.

because you feel it contains generalisations and for no other reason

Not very good at this are you
NO I only asked that you prove it is an accurate generalisation -it is your assertion why can you not back it up? Is this really unreasonable or PC of me to ask you can evidence what you say. If you can assert without evidence why can i not just reject without evidence?
Fair enough you generalise away without the ability to demonstarte it is a fair, reasonable or reflective one.

JY – If Jon uses the prevalence of press reports to back up his point (yes, we all know they are nothing like statistical proof) at least he has produced some third party evidence (weak or not). You on the other hand have simply turned the generalisation around without providing any third party source for your presumption that “I really am not sure they are more likely to be racist, faithist or homophobic”.

I demand evidence as much as the next man, especially statistical evidence, but you cant automatically assume the argumentative high ground because your un-evidenced assumption is somehow more liberal than the other.

A reasonable point stoner [ ina debate] but say I want to assert something then surely the onus is on me to offer proof or can we all just make assertions without evidence?
I am not even sure if he means UK muslims or all Muslims or who they are more racist, faithist and homophobic than TBH.
I gave some examples in my post of other groups at least as poor as Muslims in these areas

Not very good at this are you

I’m exceedingly good at this.

NO I only asked that you prove it is an accurate generalisation -it is your assertion why can you not back it up? Is this really unreasonable or PC of me to ask you can evidence what you say. If you can assert without evidence why can i not just reject without evidence?
Fair enough you generalise away without the ability to demonstarte it is a fair, reasonable or reflective one.

You can no more prove what I have said than prove that capitalism is better than socialism or that God does or doesn’t exist. The issue with it is exactly the same, its a matter of what your reality and opinion is.
I’ve just had a chat with the Muslims lads who I work with and all 6 of them think that their communities are more homophobic than white communities in Britain. I trust them over some pixels on a screen just as you will obviously trust your reality rather the the pixels on the screen that is me.

I could cite the bloke on the today programme on Radio 4 last week who felt he needed to start a workshop in his Mosque because the Black Muslims weren’t being allowed in my the Asian Muslims or the story that beeb ran at the start of the year about Gay Muslims bing the largest growing sector of homeless people in Britain as they are ostracised by their families. I’m not going to because I just leave myself open to the the claim that these things get blown out of proportion when then happen in the Muslim community even though I deliberately chose the BBC as it is as balanced and fair a news organisation as there is. There simply are no statistics breaking down ethnic and religious communites and their standpoints on different issues, would you rather there were so that the state could police tollerance?

The point is I stated MY truth, what i see with my own eyes and ears living in Manchester and mixing daily with a number of people from all different cultures and enjoying the differences we have. Someone approaching multiculturalism as a good thing but ignoring all of the differences you find unpalatable is as I have stated idiocy. We aren’t all the same, its a fact of life.

I think everyone is going to end up in a stalemate anyway as after a quick dig around the interweb it’s clear that all race crime based statistical collection is done in a way to make such analysis impossible. The last thing any sane government wants is to provide statistical source data that might fuel the rantings of the hard right/hard left. But it’s a pity that in an effort to avoid the confrontation, the opportunity for genuine enquiry and understanding is also lost.

JonR said:-members of the Muslim community in the UK are far more likely to be racist, faithist and homophobic but the moment you point it out you feel like you have committed a faux paux because you have pointed out a fault of a group of people who are almost exclusivly not white and the stigma of racism is a bad one. Its amazing how badly black Muslims are treated by asian muslims for example.

That’s a very broad statement…. very general. A true Muslim would be accepting of any faith, homophobia isn’t a faith, its a way of life which i wouldn’t associate with religion. However regardless it shouldn’t be abused and a true Muslim wouldn’t do that, if you read into Islam you will see the title of the religion means peace and anyone undergoing that faith signs up to a peaceful way of life, Muslims can marry Christian women, Jewish women and accept all colours and creed, equally I had to laugh when I read your statement about blacks being treated badly by Asian Muslim, most Muslims in other countries are from Afrian decent, id say they were what you’d call black…

Secondly Black people, whats a black person, i don’t see any black people in the UK, i see people or different colours yes but not black or white. English and Asian yes, so when you say black people are treated badly by Asian people could we then say black people are treated badly by you because you call them black when clearly they are brown…. the saga goes on. Its petty I know.

Interesting, I feel we possibly misunderstand people of different cultures.

We have to live together regardless, however we should be able to maintain our OWN affiliation with our OWN cultures and make that clear to others without being labelled or judged. Equally we should embrace others cultures.

Some may not like this but the facts are that the UK established itself many years ago through working (this can be interpreted of course) with India, can we ever go back to a independently English UK , do we remember what it was like, if we was to take the foreigners out of the UK would be have such a colourful mix of foods, restaurants…? I find we spend more time on thinking we are different, oh we cant talk to him because he is Muslim or her because she wears a head scarf, i feel we are blinded to what is actually lies beneath we are all people nevertheless we just come in different boxes, we forget that most of the laws and rules we live by today are due to the principles of religion should we not be proud of the civilised society we live in?

We can live in a multicultural society what am i saying we have no choice, why not just educate ourselves talk to them and learn to get on with them?

I’m not going to get in to a long and drawn out discussion

So you failed I did not read your post BTW out of respect for your position 😉
HTH
Of course Stoner you are correct and we would not be able to decide what it meant anyway.
Take the % of BME people in prison and we see a disproportinate amount of Black people in prison. Are they more “criminal” or just more oppressed or just from lower scoio-economic groups.
I suspect there will be some racial differences in crime but disecting them would be near impossible IMHO

Stoner,

I was attempting (albeit poorly) to use ‘veiled-speech’, alas!

EDIT: Humanity kills, attacks and mutilates on the grounds of ‘belief’… agree/disagree?

The entire thread, along with the global strata bases it’s ‘truth’ upon a data-less, science-less myth. Insomuch as did anyone catch Sir David Attenborough’s programme featuring Mermaids the other evening, or Rob Winston’s special ‘ The Zygote-less Conception?

I’m not targeting any specific ‘theory’, merely attempting to uncover the elephant in the…thread, media, world??

Funny, that none of the ‘3k year old’ ‘truths’ were just that!

Where is the smoking gun?

How do you quote on this thingy…..

The facts are most foreigners that came to the UK had to start from scratch, there was no inheritance, no helping hand and no ancestors to help the kick start just wasn’t there, third generation Asians now will be better off. However second generation Asians/Afro-Caribbean etc that came over to the UK worked hard and did well, others just didn’t understand the system and may of possibly been from a more rural environment back home and the picking of tea is just not a skill we need here, therefore they may have been pushed towards educating themselves to get a half decent job, how does one do that with no money! Kids are then forced to do crime. We could then go into the prison system in the UK, three hot meals a day bonus!

Take the % of BME people in prison and we see a disproportinate amount of Black people in prison. Are they more “criminal” or just more oppressed or just from lower scoio-economic groups.
I suspect there will be some racial differences in crime but disecting them would be near impossible IMHO

the tools are available that make that kind of analysis quite possible. You can normalise prison data for socio-economic classification across ethnic origin if the data was collected, but I dont think it is. Conversely the data that the police do collect on ethnic background for stop and search, arrest, even judicial routes (Magistrate, caution, imprisonment etc) does allow you to normalise for oppression and police “institutional racism” too.

Id be surprised if there isnt such a paper out there somewhere waiting to be written…

equally I had to laugh when I read your statement about blacks being treated badly by Asian Muslim, most Muslims in other countries are from Afrian decent, id say they were what you’d call black….

That’s a lovely and optimist viewpoint, but not one I’d call particularly realistic. Go to any muslim country and you’ll quickly see massive amounts of racism from the Arabs towards, for example, Somalis – despite both being muslim. Arguing they’re both “black” (or neither of them is) is just stupid – there are clear physiological differences between them. I don’t for a moment think those differences should be the basis of how we should interact, but the differences are there.

Oh, and the largest Muslim population is in Indonesia. Nowhere near Africa.

Britain, melting pot of the world or multicultural ‘swamp’?

Siblings are from the same womb but they argue. I wouldn’t consider it as racism, religion is being disputed about by even the most intelligent historians and scientists of today and still after years of hi-tech research and debate they still can’t get it right or find the evidence, I wouldn’t call that racism.

I suspect Somalis and Arabs are disagreeing on the finer points of Islam which yes I agree happens allot, but don’t we do that with things we are passionate about, I’ve argued the grade of a rapid, the gears on a bike before..

I’ve come to realise that the only way we can get on in this society is to understand where the other person albeit difference colour call it black blue pick what you like is coming from, we have to make the efforts to understand them, don’t misunderstand them and get it wrong that’s the worse thing we can do as that then upsets them and they feel targeted by you.

If need be read a book. It will make things much clearer for us who struggle with the cultural divide as such…what you think?

Also I’m not denying Indonesia has largest Muslim population, when I was in SA i was told black people don’t like to be referred as being black, sub divide people if you like yeah, but get it right. That’s a whole new topics lets not overload!

Britain, melting pot of the world or multicultural ‘swamp’

Bit of both, I suspect – just like any other country with large-scale immigration.

I suspect Somalis and Arabs are disagreeing on the finer points of Islam which yes I agree happens allot, but don’t we do that with things we are passionate about, I’ve argued the grade of a rapid, the gears on a bike before..

When I was living in Egypt it was definitely racism, little or nothing to do with religious belief. Same as the racism you get in most countries, but more overt.

How many angels on the head of this pin?

How many angels on the head of this pin?

About the same number you can get on the “Unions: Good or Evil” pin.
Your point is?

Immigration has done many good things for the UK, albeit bad too but I think we need to be thankful the new Government has decided to control the system.